Retirement Plan Gets Punched In the Mouth

[Green Papaya]

I was still working during the market crisis in 2008. So it made it easy for me not to change anything since my paychecks were still coming in. Fast forward to Feb 2020, I was 2 months into FIRE and my NW was at an all time high. One month later it dropped about 25% and my anxiety was very high but I did not sell equities. I was planning to move my 401k to IRA but decided to wait out market volatility. I finally rolled over all my 401k in July. Now I am +4% from my Feb high. I guess I am a lucky guy.

 

[Koolau]

I guess I did change my (original) plan. THAT plan was before I learned about this community. THAT plan was simply to become Financially Independent (though I didn't know to call it that at the time.) SO, once I achieved FI, I realized I liked what I was doing so I stayed until they told me I had to do something I didn't want to do. I said "No, I don't have to. I'm outta here!"

YMMV

 

[Murph]

I've got about a 65-35 mix and left it alone. I eventually got everything back and then some after the March dip, so I'm glad I didn't make any changes to that. I have, however, put off flying and have not seen my Pop in FL for quite awhile. I've decided to drive down next week for his 87th birthday.

 

[kingkarmann]

I’ve been homeless. It was an interesting experience.
I retired this past June. It’s been an interesting experience.

 

[24601NoMore]

This. Stop doing projects so we can finish building our house please!

OSB has gone from $10 a sheet, to $20 a couple weeks ago, to $30! today.

1"1/8" T&G subfloor plywood has gone from ~$35 to $61

At this rate, it will cost more to build a house from wood than from gold soon.

That's exactly why we decided to not build our retirement house, even after finding the absolutely "perfect, dream" property - 3.5 wooded acres with a pond at the end of a cul-de-sac.

New construction prices are INSANE. We talked with multiple builders, architects and others that all told us to budget at least $250 / sq ft to build a "nice" (not exhorbitant or "fancy") house.

That would have put us at $900K+ for a 2,700 sq ft "decent" house by the time we were all said and done.

No thanks! We didn't really WANT to stay put, but the cost of new construction nowadays left us little choice..

 

[almost there]

You should not base retirement on the stock market. Too unstable.

 

[steveark]

I thought that big drop in March would hurt, but it didn't. In fact I moved more into stocks and now am sitting at an all time high net worth. Which is meaningless, because we will never spend it. It generates more than we could spend because we still live frugally because that's what we like. And if the market drops by another 75%, who cares. The 25% we would have left is way more than we'll need.

 

[big-papa]

I had been wanting to tweak my plan for a few years, but it would have involved taking a capital gains hit, so I just held off, as it was just a tweak. The correction earlier this year gave me the opportunity execute on the plan and avoid the tax hit while improving my long term tax situation overall.

 

[Scarab]

We maintained normal course and speed, but that does not mean there was no anxiety, doubts or concerns at the time. It just means in the end we did not make any changes and decided it best to stick to our plan.

 

[NoiseBoy]

I am still working (March, 2021 is the new plan) so when the market tanked in in the spring, I started thinking about getting more aggressive with the equity percentage of my portfolio. My idea was to shift from the Target 2025 fund that my mega-corp 401k is 75% invested in, to the 2050 or later fund. Then, at a later date, move my money back to a lower risk fund. I ended up sitting tight mainly because the sentiment in the spring was that things were going to get worse. I did fund my Roth for the year, so yeah, I guess I'm not a trader.

FWIW in 2009 I blinked. I didn't sell, but I switched my new 401k contributions to the stable value fund and missed out on buying shares while they were cheap. That is one reason why I wanted to be aggressive during the next market correction. On the other hand, a difference of ~$100k one way or the other won't impact my plans in the least. I would probably have spent the extra on luxury travel and that's not going to happen now, possibly for a long time to come.